


Stigmata

by asuralucier



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Alchemy, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood/Gross Anatomy, Both Marcus and Winston are creepy, Chernobyl, Dubious Consent of the Soulbond made them do it variety, In which Marcus tries to mentor John, Jungian Psychology, Just another explanation for John's immortality, Loremaster!Harry, M/M, Mind Palace, Mindfuck, Nonconsual Soulbond (in that neither Marcus and John want it and the consequences are pretty awful), Or dies trying, Pre Canon, Self Harm, Snarky Telepathy, Suicide Attempts, Theosophy, Trauma, Wonky High Table Mythology, Worldbuilding, magical branding, ouroboros, poor Marcus, several times
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 16:42:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19380682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: ”Yeah, but no. I’m going to give that a hard pass,” Marcus said. “I’ve heard what he’s done to the rest of his Protectorates. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I have a reservation at Eleven Madison Park at the end of the week that I’d really like to make. I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.”“Marcus, we didn’t ask you here just so you can refuse the High Table,” the Elder fixed him with a steely glare; Marcus felt it clamp around his skull. “And rest assured, you won’t die. Not in the way you think, anyway.”“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”Marcus is assigned by the High Table to rein in one John Wick, a particularly stubborn, potently suicidal apprentice under the care of the Continental in New York. He makes the mistake of complaining that he can’t keep up with John, only to realize that the High Table has a very unusual solution.(Or, the soulbond AU where Marcus dies for John Wick, over and over and over. This shit is getting old.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ...This is what happens when an absolute babe says to me on Discord: “But what if Marcus can’t die?” and me reading too much Jung at 4am in the morning. After waffling about this for about two weeks, this is what I have come up with. 
> 
> The title, "Stigmata," refers to a mental or physical mark that is characteristic of a defect or disease. “Tiro” is taken from the medieval Latin word “tyro” meaning “recruit” or “novice.” 
> 
> I don’t know any soulbond tropes, so this is probably going to be quite cruel and mean. But our boys love each other really. Please read tags and make sure that this fic is for you!

When the car rolled up next to Marcus on the curb, he got a bad feeling. 

The car was unremarkable and unmarked, which he wasn’t entirely unused to but something smelled wrong. It wasn’t just the gray clouds overhead either, crowding over the Manhattan sky portending acid rain, possibly even in the next few minutes. 

“Your presence is imminently required at the Theatre.” 

“Are we seeing a movie?” Marcus was not on a job proper, but by this point in his career, paranoia had seeped so deep in his bones that it was possibly stuck in his marrow, his first line against the infectious bullshit he breathed in like air. This meant that he was packing. Three guns, two semi-autos that would take less than two seconds to clear their respective holsters and a Ruger near his ankle. 

“Are you refusing a direct order?” 

Marcus shrugged, “Yes. I don’t feel like it.” 

It was not the first time Marcus had done this song and dance with them, and it was not the first time he’d lost. Tossed in the backseat of the car by two big goons who subsequently pinned him in the middle, Marcus nursed his possibly broken nose. 

“You people owe me a nose job.” 

The driver, who wore dark glasses and had an ugly jaw, like it was perennially dislocated, turned around and smiled at him with smoke-black teeth. “I am certain the Table would be thrilled to take that under advisement.” 

 

And what do you know, the Table owed him trip to the dry cleaners’. When the car stopped in front of the Theatre, Marcus was again manhandled out from the back and he was distressed to learn that there were drops of blood on his trousers. After the goons planted Marcus next to the box office, they left. 

A girl was at the counter. Marcus had a passable memory and he couldn’t remember ever seeing her before. She had distinctive light gray eyes, nearly indiscernible next to the whites of her eyes. When she spoke, there was a lilting sound to her English. Something almost pleasing (almost, because Marcus knew well what lay in store for him behind that door). 

“Hello, sir. Do you need something?” 

Marcus sighed, “A new nose.” 

“I am afraid I can’t give you that, sir.” 

There was an antique bronze bell next to her wrist. Marcus knew too, what would happen once she dinged the bell. He bent and removed the Ruger from his ankle. “Can I have a minute if I do this myself?” 

“Is that what you want, sir?” 

“It isn’t,” Marcus said. “But I’m pretty sure that’s what you can give me. So please give it to me.” 

“All right.” 

In a gesture of good faith, the girl pushed the bell to the far end of her counter-space and she laced her hands as if in prayer. She watched Marcus disarm himself, unhooking the holsters on both sides and then he unthreaded his belt. It was all a bit slow going, since he was doing all this one handed. Half of it was also just for show, since Marcus really needed this minute. 

“All done?” 

“Yes.” 

 

Not long after the girl had dinged the bell, filling the lobby with a dark ominous sound, the doors to the Theatre opened, and a woman stepped out. She looked at Marcus up and down, felt him up from his ankles to around the waistband of his trousers and checked that he’d removed his belt. Then she looked at his nose. 

“Rough journey?” 

Marcus shrugged, “I’ve had worse.” 

“I’m sure you have,” the woman, the Director, smiled with her teeth. “Come, let us enter.” 

The Theatre, if it ever deigned to put on proper shows instead of just rehearsing them to prove a point, would probably give Broadway a decent run for their money. Not that Marcus liked Broadway. When he wanted to get laid he did, but that had very little to do with his preferences for entertainment. It was all kind of incidental. 

Marcus followed the Director into the Theatre, a high ceilinged affair with Rococo affectations. The hall easily sat five hundred, but Marcus struggled to recall a time in his memory that the Theatre sat more than a rapt audience of ten. 

Onstage, there was a figure forced on his knees, wearing a blindfold and little else. Marcus could even see the outline of his shriveling dick, if he squinted (he didn’t). 

“Who’s that?” 

“John Wick. Perhaps you have heard of him.” 

Marcus instantly stiffened, “ _No_. Whatever the fuck you’re going to ask me to do. I refuse.” 

The figure, John Wick, might have been blindfolded but he obviously had not been provided earplugs, because Marcus’s refusal made him jerk from his previously still position. Right away, a shot came from somewhere and John Wick screamed. He howled like a wounded beast and blood pooled around him on the wooden stage. 

“Well,” said Marcus. “That solves it then, I guess.” 

The Director said, “He isn’t dead. They just shredded his gastrocnemius. John Wick will live. We need him to.” 

Marcus looked towards the stage, where a few people had pinned John down flat on the stage and someone was tending to his leg. 

“I’ll take that from you,” she held out her hand. 

“What?” 

“Your cloth,” the Director gestured. “It looks like you’ve stopped bleeding.” 

Marcus touched his nose and a pain shot right up right up to his brain. Still, he held out the cloth and she took it. Then Marcus sat down. 

“From what I hear, you’re one of our best Protectorates. Tiros under your care come highly recommended; people practically salivate over them. And you’re not even that old yourself.” 

Marcus twitched. It seemed that the voice was coming from somewhere downwind but he was careful not to turn his head. Surprise at this stage, on this stage, would count irrecoverably against him. He kept still. 

“If John Wick has even called you in from the desert, then we must all really be in trouble.” 

“No one calls me anywhere,” said the voice, but now it was not so surprising because Marcus knew who it was. “And given even your visceral reaction, I gather I am right to be concerned about John Wick.” 

“The answer is still no. I’ve just released my other tiro. Liesl von Hofmilner. From what I hear, Munich is besotted with her. I want to be alone for a while. I’ve fucking _earned_ it.” 

“Maybe you have,” said the Elder. “But I’m afraid that is not a luxury that the Table is able to provide to you at the moment.” 

Marcus swallowed a few choice words and watched John on the stage. He was still now, as if his soul was barely in his body. It was probably too much to ask that he just die from that shot to the gastrocnemius. 

“The Table humbly requests that you take on John Wick. He needs a firm hand and an eagle eye trained on him at all times.” 

“Which Continental is he beholden to?” 

“Manhattan. Right here on your doorstep, Marcus,” the Elder told him this, as if he was the one doing Marcus a damn favor. 

“Has there been complaints from Management?” 

“Winston is not a man who complains.” 

“How old is he?” Marcus pointed his chin at the stage. He found that he couldn’t tell. 

“Twenty-five, twenty-six. I’m not certain. We are aware that it is going to be a challenge. That you haven’t worked with a tiro older than nineteen.”

He tried to hiss through his nose. It was too painful, so he gave up. ”Yeah, but no. I’m going to give that a hard pass,” Marcus said. “I’ve heard what he’s done to the rest of his Protectorates. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I have a reservation at Eleven Madison Park at the end of the week that I’d really like to make. I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.” 

“Marcus, we didn’t ask you here just so you can refuse the High Table,” the Elder fixed him with a steely glare; Marcus felt it clamp around his skull. “And rest assured, you won’t die. Not in the way you think, anyway.” 

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” 

 

It meant that Marcus too, was on his back on the wooden stage, pinned down by four goons wearing masks, the cheap plastic kind sold by Halloween stores because of course the Table was stingy. No doubt just following orders. John was screaming again and Marcus has just about had it up to here.

He tried to turn his head. “Would you fucking _shut up_.” 

Suddenly, there was a silence. Then John said, “You sound very close to me. I can’t see.” 

“I’m right next to you.” Marcus said. To the custodian of his right arm, he said, “Let go. I won’t try anything.” 

The goon turned his head towards the darkness that was the rest of the hall and the Elder’s voice from somewhere rang out: “Release him. But just his right arm.” 

Immediately, Marcus’s right arm was set free and he craned his neck towards John. He grabbed the younger man by the hand and squeezed. “See? This is me.” 

“You’ve got clothes on,” John said, He must have felt the brush of Marcus’s sleeve. So John was perceptive. That was a plus. It was likely not enough to redeem him and what he had done to land himself in this mess. 

“I’ve got a broken nose,” Marcus said by the way of offering some camaraderie. “They’re making me your new Protectorate, John. I understand that you’ve caused the death of your last seven Protectorates. My name is Marcus, and I’m not like them. Do you understand?” 

“Yes, yes, I understand. What the fuck is happening?” 

John had a strong grip, one that was threatening to cut off circulation to Marcus’s fingers, but he filed that away as another plus. If he was going to be stuck with this kid – young man – then he was going to have to start finding the good in…

Oh _fuck_. 

John must have felt it, the change in Marcus. He pressed hard enough for Marcus to pay attention to him again. “ _Tell_ me. Please tell me.” 

A sudden panic seized Marcus and he glanced out into the hall. Surely the Elder was still there, because this. This was – 

Marcus's voice must have gone up one octave, maybe even two. “Elder! Elder, let us the fuck go. I will take John Wick as my tiro. I’ll do fucking anything. Don’t fucking do this. Do you hear me? Don’t fucking do this.” 

Silence. 

“But I must,” it was the Elder himself who next appeared onto the stage, next to the strange, slight billowing figure that was currently causing most of Marcus’s anxiety. This was something, because Marcus had long ceased to be an anxious person. “Because of who you are, Marcus. And who you could be, John. I need to assure your lasting fealty to the Table. That you won’t recklessly spend your lives.” 

“Marcus, Marcus what the fuck is happening,” John said, gripping him so hard Marcus was sure he was going to sporting more than a broken nose any minute now. Anywhere else anytime else, he might have found that impressive. 

Now though, even if Marcus was not privy to all the details, he knew exactly what was coming. There were plenty of stories, even not all of them were true. He couldn't help but get the general idea. 

“Kid. John,” Marcus forced a breath out of his mouth. “This is happening whether we like it or not. It’s going to hurt like a son of a bitch. Try to go somewhere, anywhere, if you can.”


	2. Chapter 2

Marcus got shot every so often. Not so much recently, but certainly when he was up and coming. It was around the sixteenth time a bullet had hit him in the shin that Marcus succeeded in going somewhere. He got so good at it that he even got that somewhere to smell right. It was difficult to trick one’s most primordial sense, that of smell, and put thought into it. 

Somewhere was a main shopping street in Rome. He’d always liked the city, with its history and food and people. He also liked its wine, its women, some of its men when they didn’t have guns, and even its latent hypocrisy thanks to the Holy See. It lent the city unmistakable color. 

But then Marcus saw him, a wild maned spider of a man, dashing down Via Nazionale, like his pants were on fire. The figure had a smell clinging to him. It was acrid and desperate and lost. 

“ – John?” 

Marcus hadn’t spoken particularly loudly, but it was precisely where they were (in his mind) that John whipped his head around and spotted him at once. 

“Let me _out_ ,” John grabbed him by the neck and squeezed and in that neat pinpoint of pain, the happy bustle of Via Nazionale fell away and Marcus was left, once again, in the choking dark. 

 

Marcus woke up, and gasped for breath. He was surprised to learn that he could, in fact, breathe, and that the pain he was in was even manageable. You didn’t get far if you didn’t manage pain around here and this, this was just about okay. 

He touched his nose, unsurprised to find it still broken, and there was an unnatural tugging at the back of his head. Something not quite like pain but close enough. 

_Let me out! Please let me out!_

Marcus shook himself. 

He looked around. Marcus was lying in a bed; the sheets didn’t smell even faintly medical. He put his nose against one of the pillows and thought the detergent smelled familiar. He forced himself to get up and he was fine standing until something sharp and blunt stabbed him near his kidney at the same time. 

For a moment, Marcus was afraid to look. But then he knew he had to, so he did. He lifted up the edge of his t-shirt, the same one that he’d worn underneath his shirt when he had been coerced into going to the Theatre.

The Theatre. There was a kid there. A naked kid with a –

Marcus glanced down at what used to be smooth skin covering the area near his hip. Now it was black, blue, and ugly. It had a shape, of a ringed beast swallowing its own tail and it seemed to be moving, groveling around just underneath his skin. 

He thought to touch it, somehow didn’t dare. The pain was growing there in that spot, that made it hard to do anything else. 

Marcus curled up on the carpet and cursed his life. He cursed in first in German, because Liesl hadn’t been the most partial to English, and then Marcus cursed in Finnish because he found that he missed lovely Simo, the tiro before Liesl, with his no-nonsense Nordic mannerisms and just fuck this _shit_. 

A knock sounded. Marcus glared at the door and gathered up what little strength he had towards his vocal cords. 

“Who the _fuck_ is it?” 

“The Owner of this fine establishment.” 

“And a doctor,” came another voice. 

“You don’t sound like you’re in a good state, Marcus. We’re going to come in.” 

Marcus swore some more, but this time, in his head. 

_Let me out! Let me go!_

“Shut _up_.” Marcus muttered, “Shut up, shut up, shut up.” 

“...Do excuse us,” the door to his hotel room was opening and Marcus saw two pairs of shoes before he dared look up. 

“Well,” Winston said, staring down at him from the tip of his nose. “They certainly have done a number on you, haven’t they?” 

Winston was the longtime Manager of the Continental in Manhattan even though he was not yet fifty. The going joke was that the man practically owned this place, even though it was still designated as company grounds. A grand duke assured over and over again of his own worth in a sprawling kingdom. A king in all but name. Marcus glared at him and spat something into the carpet. Bile and blood. 

“It looks like you’re going through the early stages of rejection,” said the doctor mildly. “Let’s get you back to bed.” 

Marcus found that he couldn’t exactly argue with that. He tried to get up using just his own strength, but he couldn’t. He grabbed almost blindly at the doctor’s elbow and retched again. The pain in his kidney had bloomed like a snakelike ivy, something invasive, constricting all around the inside of his body. 

The doctor looked at the puke on his shoulder.

“Yeah, you know what? Not apologizing. Tell me what rejection is.” 

Still, the bravado that Marcus harnessed in his voice, somehow, again, by thinking of Via Nazionale, didn’t seem to want to spread into other parts of him. He sank deeply onto the mattress and let the doctor arrange the covers around his shoulders like he was some kind of kid. Some part of Marcus was grateful; the room was suddenly freezing. 

“What do you think it is?” 

“Okay,” Marcus closed his eyes. “What am I rejecting?” 

“It’s a very old ritual, Marcus,” now it was Winston who spoke. “Beyond what medical science can adequately explain. I’m surprised it took.” 

Marcus was wondering if he could, on his next go, manage projectile vomiting in a bid to ruin Winston’s nice suit. “You _did_ this to me. I’ve done nothing but what I was told. I don’t fucking deserve this.”

“I have no responsibility in this matter,” Winston held up his hands. “All I did was recommend that you be Jonathan’s next Protectorate given your exemplary record. It seems that the Table was amenable to the suggestion.” 

“Jonathan.” 

“It’s what I call John Wick.” 

_Let me out! I can’t see anything!_

Marcus laughed, the sound tight and strange, he almost didn’t recognize it as coming from his own mouth. This whole thing was absurd and crazy and wrong. He spit up again, careful to aim in Winston’s general direction but the man just deftly stepped away from the side of the bed and smile serenely at him like haha, fuck you. 

The doctor was kind enough to hand Marcus a towel. 

“If this is a sex thing, I want nothing to do with it. Get this thing out of me.” 

“I assure you I would not mind it if it was a sex thing,” Winston said. “But it isn’t. It’s a matter of the New York Continental having wasted resources on Jonathan and I’d like to recoup my losses by debuting him after you get him to mind.” 

“Fine,” Marcus struggled to drag himself halfway to a sitting position, and from there, it was a slow labored task, sliding himself up aligned with the headboard of the bed. He pushes back the covers, and lifts up his shirt again. The beast seemed even darker than before, devouring Marcus, everything that he was, with gusto. “I’ll do it. Hand me something sharp.” 

“I really wouldn’t do that,” said the doctor. 

Winston stayed still and said nothing. No doubt the old fox wanted to see what was going to happen. 

Marcus was still wearing his watch. He took it off his left wrist and unscrewed a pin. 

_LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?_

“Fuck all of you,” Marcus said, and plunged the pin into the mouth of the beast. First there was pain of the needle piercing through skin, which he could deal with because he had prepared for it. But then it was the other darkness that took over his entire head. A scream filled his throat and his vision.

It was not his. 

 

Marcus woke up for the second time. There was a definite stink in the room, the stink of a body rotting, which was not surprising given the state of him the last time he passed out. 

He found that he could not move, that both of his arms were affixed to the headboard of the bed in cuffs. The more he struggled, the tighter they became. 

“We don’t want you to hurt yourself,” Winston said brightly. “We can’t afford to find another alchemist.” 

“How is your head?” the doctor asked, “Are you hearing voices?” 

Marcus closed his eyes and listened. There wasn’t anything. Not even the tiniest wisp of _I can’t see_ or _let me out_. 

“Nothing,” he said. What a fucking relief. “I don’t hear anything.” 

On the other hand, Winston looked alarmed. “Not at all?”

“Not a damn thing,” said Marcus. “Where is John, anyway?” 

“He is still unconscious, the last we looked,” the doctor said. “...May I check your mark?” 

Marcus glanced down at himself. “I’m strung up. Have your way with me, Doc.” 

The doctor ignored him the way Winston probably wouldn’t have and lifted his t-shirt. Marcus tucked his chin into his neck and tried to look too. 

“Color’s good, dark and robust. Your antics haven’t harmed the mark. Looks like it naturally protects itself,” the doctor told him and covered him again. “Or should I say, the stigmata. That’s the proper word for it.” 

“Of course it is,” Marcus muttered darkly. 

“Do you feel like vomiting?” 

His throat felt raw and sore, like either he’d been screaming for hours or someone had been throat fucking him without his permission. At this juncture, Marcus wasn’t sure which was worse. But no rush of bile or anything else was splurting its way up his esophagus and that was a great thing. He could definitely live with that. 

“No. Does that mean the rejection…?” 

The doctor touched his forehead. Made a noise that wasn’t entirely reminiscent of ‘well, I guess you’re going to die, I guess I’ll see you.’ Which was better than nothing. “Your fever has gone down, too. It will take some time, but it would seem that your body is no longer going through rejection.” 

“Wasn’t aware I had one,” Marcus said. He was suddenly aware of the way old sweat, sweat from someone else, sweat from a life that seemed unlikely to be his, the way the stink stuck to his skin and his t-shirt. 

“You were cold, just a few minutes ago, weren’t you?” 

“I think so,” Marcus nodded. “I don’t really remember.” Why _couldn’t_ he remember? 

The doctor was watching him very sharply. “Is anything the matter?” 

Marcus decided to keep it to himself. Whatever the fuck this was. “My nose hurts. Can you give me something for that?” 

“I can do,” said the doctor. 

While the doctor was busy fetching him a prescription, Marcus turned his attention to Winston, who was suddenly very interested in whether or not his cufflinks were loose. “What did you mean you were surprised it took?” 

Winston still did not look at him. Instead, he sighed, as if Marcus’s inquisitiveness cost him dearly and he had better things he ought to be doing. But still, he was standing there, so Marcus figured he probably didn’t. 

“First of all,” said Winston. “Do you know why your stigmata is in the shape of a beast devouring its own tail?” 

Marcus shrugged. 

“It’s the ouroboros,” Winston told him. “A mythical creature which first entered into human consciousness via Egyptian iconography, was bastardized later by the Hellenistic tradition and later, picked up by famous practitioners of alchemy during the Medieval period.” 

“I hate history,” said Marcus.

“History keeps us sharp,” said Winston. “If we learn from the mistakes that our forebearers have made, then we’d all be more enlightened human beings.” 

“Says the man who’s made a mistake,” Marcus’s mouth twisted. “The fact that you had to rope me into it proves that you’ve made a mistake with John Wick. At least have the guts to admit it, Winston. The doc’s not here. And I’m fucked with this O whatever thing.” 

“Ouroboros,” said Winston. “I didn’t make a mistake. You should have seen him. Ten years ago. Or, no. I’m misremembering. Nearly eleven now.” 

“You know I think you’re some sort of pervert, right?” 

“You can think whatever you’d like about me,” Winston opened his arms almost magnanimously. A telling smirk hung about his mouth. “It doesn’t mean I’ve had a lapse of judgment. I know I haven't."

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Marcus tried to move, and then remembered that he was still restrained. “Can you get me out of this?” 

“You prefer younger tiros, Marcus,” Winston came to the side of the bed; he touched one of the cuffs that affixed Marcus’s wrist to the bed but went no further. “That can be easily misrepresented all on its own. I’m not the only one in that room. The perverts’ hall of fame.” 

If John Wick was indeed twenty-five or twenty-six as the Elder claimed, then Marcus had at least a decade on him, give or take. He had no reason to disbelieve the Elder, but Marcus was still in a pickle. “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t sleep with all my tiros.” 

“Just some of them?” Winston suggested, either hopefully or helpfully. 

“Fucking uncuff me,” said Marcus. “I’m not rejecting shit, and I won’t hurt myself.” 

Finally, Winston did and Marcus tried to rub some feeling back into his wrists. “Let’s make one thing clear, yes?” 

“Certainly. I like clarification,” said Winston. He’d retreated to his chair. 

“I like younger tiros because they see exactly the monsters I tell them to. I teach the right kind of fear. I slaughter their conscience the way I see fit,” Marcus said. “It’s impossible for me to do that with John Wick. I know that already without laying a finger on him. And besides, this –” He poked himself severely in the kidney, right in the mouth of the ouroboros. “It’s taken away the greatest weapon I have.” 

“How do you figure?” 

“You can’t teach a man who isn’t afraid of death, Winston. It’s the same reason that you can sit there as you do and spew shit at me as you do. You’re on company grounds. You have nothing to fear from me.” Marcus pushed himself slowly off the bed and touched his bare feet to the carpet. There was a small pool of bile and blood nearby and he made sure to avoid it. 

He crossed the room to where Winston sat and it was so, so very tempting to put a knee in Winston’s testicles. In the end, Marcus decided against it, but it was a near thing. 

“What’s done is done,” Marcus said. He rolled his shoulders back and prepared for the worst. “Will you take me to John Wick?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is interested in reading more about the significance of the ouroboros, I found [these](https://stottilien.com/2012/06/03/the-symbol-of-serpent-and-dragon-an-jungian-view/) [two](http://jungcurrents.com/a-jungian-shaggy-snake-story) articles particularly helpful.


	3. Chapter 3

On Via Nazionale, Marcus found John Wick once more. The younger man was skeletal and seemed to be missing bits of himself this time. He almost seemed younger, no more than a teenager who’d suffered a great shock in the wide expanse of the cruel world in which they lived. In sharp contrast to the color that Marcus had spent long hours cultivating in his vision of Rome, John stood out like a phantom grasping for life. 

“...You came back.” 

“I was never really away,” Marcus said. “It’s my head. I can’t really leave, you know.” 

John rolled his shoulders back, as if checking that he was still embodied in himself. That he was not lost, “Where is this?” 

“My favorite place,” said Marcus. “Rome’s Via Nazionale.” 

“I’ve never been to Rome.” 

“If you stop killing your Protectorates, you might have made it to places. At least, it was important to me that my tiros traveled and traveled well.” Marcus said, “You must know that. And you kept doing it.” 

“I didn’t mean to kill them,” said John. “Any of your tiros ever try to kill you?” 

“I choose to believe that they don’t mean to,” said Marcus. “If they tried to kill me, it means that I’ve not done my job to educate them about how the world works. You tried to choke me in my mind, John. Remember doing that?” 

John vibrated, and the whole of Via Nazionale vibrated with him. “Yeah. I remember. I freaked out.” 

“And what happened?” 

“I couldn’t see shit.” John said, “It was completely dark. Just like in the Theatre. I want to go back in my own head. But I can’t find my way out. I can’t seem to find my way out.” 

Marcus turned his eyes skyward. His Rome was perennially blessed with a clear blue canopy overhead. But there was something unnatural in the air, which messed with the smell that usually permeated the place.

“Why can’t I go back in my own head? Are you trying to trap me here?” 

Marcus made a mental note to ask what Winston exactly what he saw in John Wick ten years ago. There was always something undeniably attractive, even seductive about chaos, about something out of the grasp of precision and control. But Marcus had spent just as long as a Protectorate to find unpredictability tiresome and boring. 

Clearly, the Manager of the New York Continental needed to get out more. Maybe he didn’t, because he was afraid for his life. From certainly Marcus and maybe a handful of other people. 

“I bet your head looks like Chernobyl,” said Marcus. “You probably don’t have the means to go right now because you’re unconscious.” 

“What do you mean I’m unconscious?” John stepped in, towering over Marcus and the whole of the street fell away and Marcus thought –

 

“He looks peaceful,” said Winston. 

“He’s about to wake up,” Marcus said, bracing himself. “He’s going to wake up in three, two –” 

Marcus was halfway prepared for it, just about, but John lunged off the bed and Marcus was pinned on the carpet with John’s knee from his good leg inches away from his balls. Okay, at least the man had the right idea when it came to technique. The problem was his execution. 

“What the _fuck_ are you doing to me?” 

Marcus promptly retched in his face. He hadn’t meant to. Vomit was never a great way for a Protectorate to endure himself to his new tiro, but that was neither here nor there. Still, the vomit did the trick, causing John to spring back at once, pawing at his face with the back of his hand. 

“ _Fuck_.” 

“Don’t get too excited, Jonathan,” said Winston. “You’ll probably feel like tossing your cookies too. Just give yourself a minute.” 

John did not throw up, but he did crumple a moment later clutching his hip, “Something’s inside of me.” 

“Probably me,” said Marcus. He was suddenly feeling worse again, but he was more or less sure this had to do with John’s less than desirable reaction to...all this. It was not at all a desirable situation, this, but at least Marcus was trying. “Have you looked?” 

“Looked at what?” John spat out. 

“Your,” Marcus closed his eyes. “Stigmata. It should be on you, the place where you’re hurting most. Look at it, John.” 

John managed to park himself at the side of the bed and lifted up his shirt. His face went white and dark again. “It’s moving. Why the fuck is it moving? Get it _out_.” 

“I tried,” Marcus said. “I really did. You screamed when I did. Remember?” 

But either he had spoken too late, or John had ignored him (Marcus’s bet was on the latter) because the other man had already grabbed a complementary pen off the end table and drew in a deep breath. 

“John, _don’t_ ,” Marcus reached out a hand. “For the love of –” But a brilliant piercing darkness swallowed the rest of his words. 

 

There was still that smell, slightly sour and unpleasant and altogether present on Via Nazione where Marcus again sought refuge. Despite the odor, and the weird tugging at the back of his head that assured him that he wasn’t alone, John was nowhere to be found. 

It wasn’t until Marcus rounded a narrow dead-end alley that he couldn’t remember ever being there, that he found a door. The door itself was painted a sickly color, somewhere between gray and old puke. 

When Marcus tried the knob, it was loose and the door gave. Marcus’s nose filled with a special kind of sick and his vision muddled. “...John? John, are you in here?” 

“Of course I am. It’s my head. I can’t leave.” 

“You’ve left to come to me,” Marcus said. “You can leave again. Come on. Where are you?” 

If this was indeed the recesses of John’s head, Marcus could see why the young man wasn’t having a great time. As far as he could see, there wasn’t any semblance of structural integrity, and there was hardly any light. He made his way in the best he could, picking through rubble. 

“Don’t come in. Don’t come any further. I can’t bear it. You said so yourself, my head’s no good. Like Chernobyl.” 

“I didn’t say that,” Marcus said. He turned around, angling his head to see where he’d come from. He found that he couldn’t see a thing. “Or. I did, kind of. But that was not what I meant.” 

He lost footing, and felt himself fall. A strong grip reached for him around his wrist and if Marcus concentrated, he could make out the lines of John’s old young face in the dark. Old because there was no way a mind like this was young, and young, because he was. He didn’t know how unforgiving the world could be and still hated it with his whole being. 

“What’s happening to us, Marcus?” 

“I wish I knew.” 

“I thought you were my Protectorate,” John said. “You should know these things.” 

“That doesn’t mean jack shit, John, and you know it. You should know it most of all.” 

John said, “I’m going to let go now.” 

Marcus found that he couldn’t see the bottom. “Asshole.” 

 

Marcus died, the memory of his brain splattering into asphalt fresh in mind, and then he woke up. 

It was disorienting, and after a few seconds, he realized where he was. Still on the carpet of John’s hotel room in the Continental. 

“All right?” Winston said, as if he was casually inquiring about something other than Marcus’s near death experience. “Jonathan is not doing well.” 

“It won’t come out,” John gritted his teeth. “It won’t come out.” 

“It won’t come out,” Marcus confirmed, willing his voice not to strain. “So quit it already. You’re really killing me here, John.” Having said that, he laughed. Mostly, it was ridiculous, what he was saying, and besides, laughter always made pain a bit less. But not this time. It just kept coming and coming. 

And coming.

“Winston.” 

“Yes.” 

“Tell him to _stop_ gauging himself with a fucking pen.” 

“If I could do that, I wouldn’t need you,” Winston said. “Would I, Marcus?” 

“Then have him restrained. I can’t take this. Get security in here and restrain him. Right now. That is your prerogative as the Manager. And within my privileges of being a Protectorate to ask that of you. Fuck’s sake, Winston. Do _something_.” 

 

“Something for your nose,” said the doctor. “What’s happened now?” He looked around the room; it was partially destroyed. John had put up a good fight against the six security mooks that Winston had called up from downstairs. Marcus was sure that at least one of them was really not in a good way, but a man like that, working the gig he did, would never visit the doctor for those injuries. Winston had a weakness for vain people.

“I died,” Marcus said. “The rest of it is a long story. Do you have anything stronger?” 

“I could give you a tranquilizer,” said the doctor. “One strong enough to tranquilize a horse.” 

“Lovely,” said Marcus, already dreaming of the potent stuff coursing sweetly through his veins. “Give him one too.” 

Nearby, John was wearing two cuffs on each wrist and a shock collar around his neck. Winston assured Marcus when he handed him the buzzer that the batteries were fresh. Marcus didn’t bother questioning why Winston would have one in his possession, mostly because he could guess. 

John growled, “I don’t want a tranquilizer. I just want that thing out of me. I can still feel it moving around.” 

“It’s either a tranquilizer or I shock you,” Marcus said, dangling the device squarely in John’s field of vision. “I want that thing out of me too, but neither of us are going to get what we want.” 

“You shock me, I’m pretty sure you’d feel it, too. With whatever the fuck is happening.” 

Somehow, Marcus doubted it. He still didn’t have a full grasp on the situation but it seemed to him that he’d only had the reaction that he did because John had stuck his stigmata with the pen, and apparently kept at it for quite a while, so it felt like. Earlier, it was John’s voice, raw and overused that had filled Marcus’s throat when he’d tried the same thing with the pin in his watch. 

As for everything else, it was all up in the air. Marcus was hardly a gambling man, but one could also argue that he’d been gambling with problem tiros for the last thirteen years of his sorry life. 

Marcus touched a hand to his own throat. “It might get uncomfortable for me. But since I”m not the one wearing the damn thing I can probably go all day.” 

“Probably.” 

Marcus shrugged, “Call my bluff. You can either have the tranquilizer and go for a nice nap, John, or we can have some fun.” 

John stared at him with his empty eyes and Marcus tried his best to stare back. He reminded himself that out of the two of them, he held all the cards. He had the additional privileges of a Protectorate which meant that playing this kind of game with John didn’t fall under the ever widening purview of “doing business.” 

Moreover, mark or no mark – stigmata or no stigmata, the Table was apparently desperate enough for John Wick to gain some guidance so as to glue Marcus to the task. 

Literally. 

“What’s it going to be, kid, hm?” 

John glared at him and tugged against his restraints. Then the fight seemed to drain out of him like someone had punctured a balloon. “Tranquilizer.” 

“Tranquilizer what? My tiros speak properly. Starting now.” 

John swallowed, and despite himself, Marcus found that he watched with some interest where the bump of John’s throat grazed the collar. “Please give me a tranquilizer. I would like to have a nap. I would like that very fucking much.” 

“Very good.” 

“Mind you,” said Winston from somewhere behind Marcus. “Don’t rub out all of his rough edges.” 

“Because you’d like to rub against them?” Marcus said. 

Winston didn’t say anything, but John was trying to muster a glare again. The doctor had put something into his arm and he was starting to go docile like some kind of big cat. 

“I can hear you.” 

“We don’t care,” said Marcus shortly, not even sparing John a glance. This was possibly half true, because he was sure that Winston didn’t care and Marcus himself was just about apathetic. “Have a good nap John, I’ll try to be here when you wake up.”


	4. Chapter 4

The sedative that the doctor gave Marcus after John knocked out properly was not quite strong enough to put him to sleep. But the doctor did warn him about driving so Marcus took his time. First, he went back to his room, took a much needed shower, dressed, armed himself, and then went down to the bar for a large coffee. Marcus needed to clear his head. For the first time what seemed a long time, even though the stigmata hadn’t been on him for that long, he felt alone. Not spied upon or scratched at, and wasn’t that a fucking relief. 

“You look like you’ve been through hell,” said a voice close by and Marcus looked up to see Harry standing by his table. 

“Hell wears many faces,” Marcus sighed. “I have. Kind of. Where have you been? I haven’t seen you, recently.” 

“I’ve just shipped off Sofia to Casablanca. I figure I could use a break. So I took one.” 

Harry, just a couple of years older than Marcus, was also a Protectorate. He was either not as good at what he did (which Marcus had to think because competition kept them all sharp) or Harry was better at saying no to the Table (maybe not). 

“Good for you.” 

“Someone sounds bitter,” said Harry. 

His stigmata itched, and Marcus made a split second decision. Harry was not likely to sell him out to the High Table and between Harry and Winston there was very little love lost simply because nothing existed there in the first place. 

“I’ve been asked to break someone. Despite the fact that I’ve been not without a tiro for nearly two years.” 

Harry seemed to click his tongue in sympathy.

“It gets worse,” Marcus said. “I’ve been asked to break in John Wick.” 

Harry’s hands, previously still on the copper tabletop, stuttered. “John Wick. You mean the kid that’s been a tiro for ten years because nobody can survive him? Right. Do you want to be cremated? Body donated to science? A traditional Irish wake? I’ll even pay for the last one out of pocket.” 

“Kid’s at least twenty-five,” Marcus glowered and drank the dregs of his coffee. He wished that he’d asked for a drop of something to be put in the caffeine. “No manners. Okay instincts. Disorganized as anything, no structural integrity. Yet Winston still wants to debut him. Despite the fact that he’s not learned anything in ten years. Eleven years.” 

“And?” 

“And,” Marcus inhaled sharply. “I’ll tell you. But not here.” 

 

“Really?” 

Marcus stared as Harry handed over regular American dollars and was handed a handful of quarters at a laundromat a few blocks away from the hotel. Then, Marcus stared some more as Harry dumped laundry into a machine. A _public_ machine that took two dollars (eight quarters) a wash. 

“What’s wrong with the laundry facilities at the Continental?” 

Harry fixed him with a look. “You didn’t want to stay there. I needed to do laundry. Besides, it’s not so bad. You must have routine in your life too, Marcus, mundane things that keep you going, What do you do?” 

“Incidentally go to Broadway shows?” Marcus said. Having said it out loud, he was forced to concede that that Harry had him beat and that he might not have meant to admit a growing fondness for musical theatre, even if it only served a purpose. 

“Right,” said Harry. “...What did you want to tell me?” 

“This,” Marcus lifted his t-shirt to expose the Ouroboros stigmata. “I’d like your professional opinion. The fuck is this? Don’t give me shit about Egyptian iconography or alchemy in Medieval times either. Okay? Straight up, what did the Table do to me?” 

Harry looked at it. “It’s moving.” 

“Yeah, no shit.” 

“May I touch it?” 

Marcus does his due diligence and sweeps the whole of the laundromat with a sharp gaze. There appeared to be a strung out bum stretched out on one of the benches. The cashier who had given Harry his change seemed fixated on her phone. “Yeah. Just don’t, poke it too hard or anything.” 

Harry spared him from further embarrassment and pressed his thumb and forefinger into the stigmata, feeling the movement beneath Marcus’s skin. He was careful to be gentle and kind, and Marcus’s insides thanked him for it. 

“Has the kid got one?” 

“Yeah.” 

Marcus smoothed his shirt down again and Harry turned away from him, “The Table’s only done this a couple of times before. Before our time.” 

“Why do you know about it?” 

“To tell you when you ask me,” Harry said without humor. “It’s all in the books, you know. What you’ve got, it’s called a stigmata.”

“That I know,” Marcus told him. “What I want to know is why the kid’s screaming in my head. Why it hurts like a son of a bitch when he tries to dig up his stigmata; why it’s his voice that fills me up when I tried to do the same. I had him tranquilized, Harry, so I could be fucking _alone_.” 

The loud whirring of the washer punctuated the silence between them. 

Harry said, “...Do you know what stigmata means, Marcus?” 

Marcus sighed, “Let’s see. It’s a medical thing, right? The doc knew what it was called, too.” 

“We can start with that,” said Harry. “A stigmata is a mark of a physical or mental defect on somebody’s person. St. Francis of Assisi, for example, was the first recorded cases of being stigmatic. It later turned out that he probably had leprosy. By the same token, both your life, and the life of the kid, John Wick, are, I guess in a word: infected. With each other.” 

As if life wasn’t already shit enough. Marcus breathed noisily through his nose, “Fucking brilliant.” 

“But there’s some good news,” said Harry. “If you let me put my clothes into the dryer, I’ll even show you.” 

“I’d love some good news,” said Marcus. “Sure, I got time.” 

 

Harry’s good news consisted of them climbing up an abandoned building deep on the recesses of the meatpacking district, a safe distance from the gentrification that seemed to have infested the rest of the neighborhood. As a natural sniper, Marcus appreciated the vantage point of the roof. 

“Jump.” Harry said. 

“What?” Marcus whirled on him sharply. “Are you nuts?” 

“The stigmata will protect you,” Harry opined mildly. “It’ll hurt like hell. But you won’t die. As long as Wick’s stigmata is active and unharmed, then you can’t die. Neither can he, but you knew that even before.” 

“I’ll still break every fucking bone in my body. Won’t I?”

“Probably,” Harry said. “It’s worth testing out.” 

“Fuck off,” Marcus glared at him. “You that eager to kill me or something, then just shoot me.” He cleared the gun in his right holster and handed it over. “Through the heart. Clean. You owe me that.” 

Harry took the gun from him and uncocked the safety. “This is no less crazy than you swanning off the roof. Just so you know.” 

“Oh, I didn’t say it wasn’t crazy,” said Marcus, squaring himself. He tried to feel, exactly where it was that the tranquilizer was now in his bloodstream. “I’m a control freak, I like things neat. You shoot me anywhere else, and I will come for you.” 

“Don’t speak to me like I’m a fucking tiro,” said Harry, and pulled the trigger. 

 

Marcus died again. He’d felt it, the precise moment when his heart failed. What greeted him was a strange darkness. But after he found himself, as much of himself as he could manage all at once, grasping in the narrow crawl space he’d been shoved into, he found that it was not exactly unfamiliar. He’d been here before.

“John? You in there somewhere, right?” 

John’s voice, from exactly somewhere: “What are you doing here?” 

“I’m dead. Waiting to come back to life. Hell of a halfway house, you got here.” 

“I didn’t kill you,” said John. “You left me at the Continental. Fuck you, by the way.” 

Marcus shrugged. He angled himself upright, and found that his spine was now pressed against something hard and cold. “I know you didn’t. Somebody else did. What do you think about getting some light in?” 

And thus John spoke into the dark and there was light. The light was dim and harsh at the same time and John appeared beside Marcus again like a ghost, but this time, he was more fully himself. “Better?” Then, “Marcus, you look terrible.” 

“Where do you get off telling me that?” 

“Seriously, look at yourself.” 

The light around Marcus grew brighter, and he had the oddest sensation of something inside of him being lost. He was suddenly dizzy, and the now familiar burning in his throat of vomit incoming (or outgoing). “Okay, yes. I do look terrible.” His hands were barely hands, just a passing iteration of flesh attempting to wrap itself around his bones. He was bleeding profusely where his heart had been and suddenly breathing hurt. 

“I know what’s happening to us,” Marcus said. “We’re infected.” 

 

Marcus opened his eyes and found that he was in great pain and possibly dying. But it was not an unwelcome feeling, for the first time, he didn't mind the pain because he understood it. This was the sort of pain that settled in because of burst arteries and bits of bone in his blood. Nothing he hadn’t felt before. 

He checked his stigmata. The thing was working overtime, snaking around and around. Its color was a rich bright red wherein it was black-blue before, full of hemoglobin, of lifeblood.

“You alive back there?” 

Marcus blinked. He tried to concentrate and figure out where he was. Where he was lurched and there were a series of unhappy, loud car horns. 

The back of Harry’s car. Okay, made sense. 

“I’m healing up,” Marcus said. “This is crazy.” He was nowhere near a hundred percent, but he could just about feel it, the severed veins closing up. An odd backwards feeling. 

“You probably still need a doctor,” said Harry. “I got you pretty good.” 

Marcus closed his eyes. “Hey, Harry.” 

“Yes.” 

“You said this, and Winston did too. What happened to the last two people the Table tried to do this to?” 

“Do you even need to ask?” Harry said. 

Marcus sighed, “Please tell me they didn’t just die.” 

“Some of them did. In one instance, it never took. They never got out of the rejection stage so they just...wasted away. Spit up, orifices opened up. Lesions appeared, blood poured from everywhere, until there wasn’t a drop of blood between them. You can imagine how long that took. Or, there was a couple that went steadily crazy. They ended up killing each other.” Harry shrugged. “Those are the two I remember reading about. If you want more I’d need to consult the archives at the Theosophical Society.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Marcus pressed a hand into the hole in his heart. It made him feel lightheaded. “I thought the point of this, was to make sure that John couldn’t kill me. If this is going to make us kill each other, then doesn’t that just defeat the purpose of the whole thing?”

“It’s an old ritual,” said Harry. “Nearly beyond time itself. I doubt the person performing it, or the people who wanted it done to you really understand its significance.” 

“What makes you any different?” 

Harry stopped the car. Marcus was still out of it enough that he glanced out the window and couldn’t figure out what street they were on. 

“I understand that the world is much bigger than me,” Harry said. “You understand that too. Don’t you? It’s the first thing we try to teach our tiros. The Table doesn’t understand that. It is their nature. They think they are the world. Institutional blindness. God doesn’t understand ants, if you will.” 

“I almost have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“‘Almost’ is a lot further than some people get in their lifetime,” Harry said, like some wise old thing and Marcus rather hated him. He felt Harry slide in the backseat next to him and tried to move, but Harry settled his hand on Marcus’s head and Marcus stilled. 

“Can’t I just give him to you?” 

“Don’t want him,” Harry said. The bastard didn’t even pause to think about it. 

Marcus drew in a sharp breath. “And I’m dying to have him, am I?” 

“Well,” said Harry. “You’re not exactly looking peachy, Marcus.” 

As Marcus got more and more used to the pain, he found himself more interested in the way the hole in his heart seemed to be rejecting bits of the bullet that Harry had so cunningly lodged in him. “...How did they manage to kill each other?” 

“You’re infected with John Wick, and the kid is infected with you. Do you remember freshman biology?” 

“Um,” Marcus said. “No?” He didn’t think Harry remembered freshman biology as much as he did just incidentally brush up on it recently to screw with Marcus. The idea of Harry, perhaps complete with an afro too big for his head and pocket protectors sitting at rapt attention in school was hilarious. One for the books.

Marcus would have laughed, if he didn’t think that having a giggle would again, rearrange the whole of his ribcage. “I become a Protectorate when I was twenty-four. When do you think I found the time? To remember _freshman biology_?” Even saying it out loud gave the sentiment more and more absurdity, as if it hardly existed in the world. 

“You know,” said Harry. “I think I’m beginning to understand why it took. The stigmata. You and John Wick.” 

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” 

Harry looked like he dearly wanted to put another bullet into Marcus, and somewhere messier than his heart, this time. 

“Since you’re so up for it,” said Harry. “Maybe we’ll take a pitstop, after all. Come on.”


	5. Chapter 5

Harry parked and dragged Marcus an excruciating block and a half to a stately red-bricked building. The building was on East 53rd, which meant it was easy to miss and Marcus had missed it, multiple times. He probably missed it the same way he was so careful to miss the existence of the Tarkovsky Theatre, which he would now never forget because of the atrocity that had happened to him on its premises. 

It was when they were on the steps of the building that a sharp pang stabbed and settled in his gastrocnemius. Harry actually looked like he was about to lose his shit when Marcus crumpled on the stair clutching his calf and cursing the state of his gastrocnemius.

“So you know the word _gastrocnemius_ , but can’t recall anything from freshman biology.” 

Marcus ground his teeth. “I can’t shoot anyone in the _freshman biology_ , sorry.” 

Harry hauled him up again and together they stumbled through the door of the New York Theosophical Society.

The woman, who by virtue of manning the reception to the place, looked bored to see them because she’d seen a lot worse. But she took one look at the still closing hole in Marcus’s chest, the blood trail that they’d tracked in on the nice carpets, and shook her head. 

“I’m afraid I can’t let you in, gentlemen, not when…” 

“Yeah, about that,” said Marcus. “Maybe give me another five minutes. Give me a chance.” 

“My friend is delirious,” Harry said. “We’d appreciate an exception, ma’am.” 

Marcus leaned heavily against Harry’s shoulder and tried not to look like he was dying as Harry fished out a coin from his pocket. He slid it across the smooth mohaghany of the counter and the woman studied it for a long moment. She even went as far as to weigh it in her palm, as if they were just regular shysters who were suicidal and stupid enough to pass off fake coin. 

Finally, she seemed to come to a decision. “You can come in,” the woman waves them through, but she gives Marcus a pointed look. “But he’s not allowed to touch anything.” 

 

Marcus was not the type of guy who thought of the library as a place to go for answers. 

He was a patient enough guy, but the idea of sitting still with a book seemed nothing short of torturous. Good thing that Marcus was under strict orders not to touch anything and that Harry genuinely appeared to love this stuff. The man was vibrating like a kid staring at a pile of presents on Christmas morning. 

“There’s some more in the other room. Be back,” said the librarian who had accepted their request (or rather, Harry’s request) for all available texts pertaining to any instance of the _sacrae stigmatibus_ , a ritual said to have been performed by the High Table alchemist since 1781 with some irregularity. 

Additionally, Harry asked for any recurrent mention of the ouroboros, which was possibly why Marcus found himself staring at a hefty volume labeled _Collected Writings, C. G. Jung_. 

“I forgot about that,” said Harry. “You can read that. Unless you’d like it in the German. Sure they can accommodate.” 

“Thought I wasn’t allowed to touch anything,” Marcus said. It was the only reason he'd consented to come in here, after all.

“Your hands aren’t bleeding,” Harry pointed out. “And I’m starting with this. Read any Sanskrit?” He poked the spine of a bound volume that was just as fuck-you and definitely not in English. Marcus almost thought it was Thai, the letters bore a passing resemblance to something he’d seen on a menu. But maybe not. 

Marcus said, “What?” 

“Thought not,” Harry said. 

 

In the tight crawl space that was John Wick’s conscious, Marcus said to him, “We’re infected and going through disindividuation. It’s the price that we pay for having our souls transmuted into each other.” 

Nearby, John said, “Huh?” 

Marcus’s head hurt. He missed light, and he missed the comfort of his own head. And yet he had to admit that the sentence came out appropriately Harry-esque and even he barely understood it.

“Can I have some light?” 

John shrugged. The same light from before permeated Marcus’s vision. Now that he was more used to it, for everything took getting used to. It was how a man could sink deeper and deeper into shit without understanding what the hell he was fucking getting into. 

“Where is this, anyway?” 

“The only place I could go,” John said. “Every time I try to go somewhere else, this place. It’s always pulling me back and I can’t _get out_.” 

For the first time, Marcus took in the place. They seemed to be inside of some sort of collapsed structure. He stood up, half expecting his legs to give, but the pain had dulled considerably. Outside did not look much better. But he spotted in the new light, abandoned tracks, stone steps, and a sprawling of dead foliage that seemed still, to choke everything in its sight. 

“It takes practice,” Marcus said. “It’s not as if I built Rome in a day. It’s something I can teach you, John. If you’d let me. Since we’re stuck together.”

“Are we really stuck together?” 

“Trust me, I’m not in love with the idea,” Marcus said. “You can still kill me, if what I’m reading is right. But you’re going to really have to work at it. And I’ve been at this longer than you have.” 

“This is Pripyat,” said John, after a long silence. “It’s on the border of Ukraine and Belarus. We used to come here all the time. My mother cleaned dachas.” 

“I’ve never been,” Marcus had to admit; he tended to give Eastern Europe a wide berth. “See, you’ve been places.” 

“You wouldn’t be allowed to go,” John looked at him narrowly. “Place has been mostly abandoned. Evacuated, in 1986. I was just a kid.” 

It was mostly by cultural osmosis that Marcus recalled that Chernobyl had happened in 1986. “Oh, shit.” 

“Who told you that about me?” John said. “I’ve never told anyone.” 

“I,” Marcus started and stopped. Any other time, any other tiro, he might have seized this opportunity to rip John a new one about making dumb assumptions and how those assumptions naturally built up blindspots and blindspots were a luxury that no one could afford. Not in the business they were in. Not if Marcus himself or John, for that matter, wanted to live. Their current circumstances aside, there was no excuse for anyone to be a dumb fucker. 

But he suddenly hurt somewhere and not his heart or his leg. “It really was just a joke. A guess. To prove a point. I didn’t know.” 

“Now you do,” said John. “Can you leave me alone now?” 

“Yeah,” Marcus turned. He touched the wall behind him and under his searching fingers he found loosened rock. He stepped forward, and didn’t bother looking back. 

 

“Where did you go?” Harry asked. 

Marcus found himself plastered against a bent page of C. G. Jung’s _Collected Writings_ and found that he was suddenly exhausted. Like he’d been lugging the weight of another person around and maybe he had been. He was just more conscious of it now and maybe that wasn’t a great thing. 

The odd pang that had hit him earlier was still there. Now that Marcus was newly conscious, aware of the uncomfortable way he was sitting in his chair, aware of the nearly too warm lights above him (no doubt because the place he’d just been, wherever it was, inside the kid’s head, was cold. Even if the sun, unrelenting and far away, had been out). 

“I think I’m developing heartburn,” said Marcus. 

“That’s probably the least of your problems,” Harry shut the volume he’d been balancing across his knees. 

“Probably,” Marcus checked his watch. He found that he had no real memory of the last ten minutes. “Am I disintegrating?” 

“That’s something else,” Harry said, a touch patronizingly and but in the end, Marcus had to admit that the man was still putting up with too much of his shit. “If you disintegrate, then somebody’s blown you clear you across the room and nobody can put you back together. Actually –” 

Marcus massaged his temples, hoping to see sense. Sense did not appear to be forthcoming. “You know what I fucking mean. Don’t you go getting funny ideas.” He ran his finger down the page he’d not long ago been reading. It was nearly all gibberish. “...Disinvidiuating. That’s not what it says here.” 

“Disinviduation is specific to this ritual,” Harry looked at him. “Jung’s whole thing was _individuation_. The other way around. How an individual conscious could emerge from collective conscious. A little like rising from the bullshit, taking what you could from crowd to sink your way back into private narcissistic hell. But now you’re technically two people. So you disinviduate.” 

Marcus stared at his hands. Because he was suddenly terrified that he would be jerking one in the shower (the way he sometimes did, so what? It was good for maintaining focus) and John would just be. Be. “That’s how the other two died. They didn’t disindivduate. The sigmata took, but they didn’t. Fuck.” 

“And died,” said Harry. “I guess, you could say, of loneliness.” 

 

Harry ended up excusing himself from the library to go back to the _laundromat for his clothes_ , and left Marcus was left, staring at a pile of paper. 

“Coffee, sir?” the librarian reappeared and assessed Marcus’s situation, which was apparently dire enough to warrant being offered a coffee in the sanctum of a library. Marcus didn’t know much, but at least, he knew the golden rule of the library. 

Marcus gave him a look. “I look that bad, do I?” 

“That’s not for me to judge.” 

“Bullshit,” Marcus spat and felt the telling rush of something up his throat and made himself swallow. “I think I’d like to go back to the Continental, now. I would be most grateful if you could call me a car. And I’m taking this with me.” So saying, he swiped a thinly bound volume off the table. “I assume that’s okay.” 

The librarian took it from him and read the title. “It is. But all alchemical records are coded. Unless…” 

“I’ll figure something out,” Marcus said surly and flicked a coin over his shoulder. 

 

He found John still cuffed to the bed and awake. There was no one else in the room. Marcus was kind of surprised that Winston had lost interest. But Winston didn’t lose interest, Marcus had a hard time imagining the man losing interest after John had cost him ten years’ worth of resources. 

“Where’s Winston?” 

“He got a phone call and left,” John said. “What happened to you?” 

“Told you I died,” Marcus went and sat on the edge of the bed. “Do you remember?” 

“I thought that was just inside my head,” John twisted his head the best he could to look at him. “You told me you died, and some other stuff. Infection. We went to Rome. And then we...” he trailed off. 

Marcus looked at the bandaged splint around John’s leg. “How do you feel?” 

“Tranquilized,” John glared at him. 

Marcus pinched down hard on John’s gastrocnemius, fully expecting and prepared for John to scream bloody murder. But John just said, “Ow.” 

“How’s your breathing?” said Marcus. “Does your chest hurt?” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“Just answer me.” 

John tried to nod. His chin bumped the metal collar he was still wearing and he drew in a deep breath. “It did. But not so much now. Can you at least take this off?” 

“I can,” Marcus moved to touch a hand to the collar. “I didn’t want to do it. But I really needed you to stop hurting the stigmata. Besides, the collar isn’t mine. It’s Winston’s.” 

“I know,” John said.

Marcus opened his mouth and then closed it again. He reached behind John and unclicked it. The device came loose in his hand and Marcus put it on the end table. He stared at it, and then changed his mind and put it in a drawer instead. 

There was a rough red ring around John’s throat and Marcus suddenly wanted to touch it without knowing why. He kept his hands to himself. 

“I want to show you something,” Marcus said. “I’m going to uncuff you on one side. Which is your dominant hand?” 

“I’m ambidextrous,” John said with a smug little shrug. Marcus didn’t get the sense that he was lying. 

Marcus undid the cuffs confining John’s left arm above his head and stood to remove his jacket. And then his shirt. As he pulled the last of fabric over his head, he heard a little whistle from John. 

“It’s not what you think it is,” Marcus said, rolling his eyes. “Look. Touch here.” 

John looked, and then he touched, with the slightly unsteady fingers of his left hand still waiting for blood, he touched over Marcus’s scarred tissue over his chest below his sternum. 

“Someone shot you.” 

“But I’m still here. I’ve shot people there plenty of times, John. It’s a sure thing as long as you wait a minute. Same with you, it looks like. Someone shot you in the leg in the Theatre. And it’s better now. If it hadn’t been, maybe you would have tried to kick me.” 

Marcus moved away from the bed again to dress. 

“You said we were stuck with each other,” John said. “I remember that now. What did you mean?” 

Marcus looked at him. He reached for cuffs on John’s right side and undid those too. “I don’t remember saying that.” 

“You _did_ ,” John said. “I swear.” 

“I didn’t,” Marcus insisted, willing his voice to hold. “Get yourself cleaned up. Take a shower, have some food. Meet me here in two hours.” When Marcus looked closer, there were still bits of skin clinging to the pen. He scribbled those out and tore the page off the pad to write on a new sheet of paper. 

“Marcus,” John said. 

“Don’t be late,” Marcus folded the paper and handed it over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to learn more about theosophy, here is the [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophy_\(Blavatskian\)). The New York Theosophical Society is a real place but I have no idea what the inside of their library looks like. 
> 
> I was late updating because I was reading [this](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/09/chernobyl-history-tragedy-serhii-plokhy-review-disaster-europe-soviet-system) book on Chernobyl. 
> 
> Thanks for reading this very strange AU!


	6. Chapter 6

“Is he in?” 

Charon peered at him and Marcus could see the concierge going through possibilities in his head, giving each answer their due. There were not that many answers, and Marcus found it hard to believe that Charon hadn’t traversed this line of reasoning at least a million times. 

But Marcus thought he understood it. There was something calming about routine. About adhering to what you knew to be factual and true and knowing too, that it was never going to let you down. Like squeezing a trigger, feeling a bullet leave the chamber and bury itself into somebody’s heart.

And then that somebody would die. Except when they didn’t. 

“He is occupied,” Charon said finally. 

“Well, when is he going to unoccupy himself?” 

“I’m afraid I don’t know.” 

Marcus felt a weird heat of anger rising up from his gut that was unnatural in his veins. He willed it to go away. “...Will you tell me when the Manager becomes not occupied, please. I would appreciate that.” 

“I shall make a note,” said Charon, pen in hand. “Consider it done.” 

 

A tiro’s training took many forms; if you were lucky, which Marcus both was and wasn’t, your Protectorate actually gave a shit about what you needed. Marcus’s own training, some fifteen years ago, took place mainly in the attic of somebody’s house in Queens. Then he spent time pretending to be a blind beggar on the subway, inciting one incident or several that were notable enough for the Bowery King, who was looking to set up a network, to sit up and take notice. 

But in the end, the Bowery King failed to procure Marcus because the High Table had wanted him more. 

Case in point, nobody said no to the Table. The Bowery King’s solution to this was to retreat so far into the sewers that he couldn’t be found. At least, that was probably what the guy told himself. 

“Same conditions?” The man at the front desk saw him coming and put down his paper. He was reading the _China Daily_ and Marcus spied what looked like lotto numbers scrawled in one corner in blue ink. There were crosses through some of them. 

“Same conditions,” Marcus nodded. “Any luck?” 

“No,” the man said without looking up. “You don’t seem to have any either. If you’re here you’re not resting.” 

Marcus snorted and went upstairs.

He found himself standing in front of the room that held his usual conditions. Before Marcus could reach for the handle, the door opened inwards. He reminded himself that he liked this place for its efficacy, and yet not exactly for its 

“Hello Marcus, back again so soon?” 

The room itself was dimly lit, probably to hide how many people dumped their shit and secrets here. It was clean, but probably not clean enough. The girl was the same one from before, small-breasted and boyish. Designed to appeal. He had no idea what her name was.

“Wish I wasn’t.” 

“And I thought you were going to say that you missed me.” 

Marcus touched her at the edge of her neck and had a very clear flash of a red ring around her throat and drew back immediately, as if her skin had burnt his hand. 

“Anything the matter?” 

Marcus pressed a hand to his temple, drew in a deep breath. “Fine. It’s been one of those days.” 

“Maybe you’d like to rest. Relax. After we finish, of course.” 

“I’ll think about it.” 

The girl went to fetch a large jug of beer and nuts that filled the room with a strange smell. Spice, something else. There was a remote on the table too and Marcus reached for it to turn on the screen opposite. He made his selection and an obtrusive cackling sound radiated from the overhead speakers. 

The girl said something, and Marcus read her lips. 

“Trust me, he needs this. This new one is a handful.” 

There was a knock at the door, which Marcus only heard because he was listening for it. 

“What the fuck,” was John’s flat greeting. He looked cleaner, just about as pissed off as when the last time Marcus had seen him at the Continental. He shrugged off his jacket and the girl reached out to take it. 

John looked at her and Marcus watched them. He turned off the noise from the speakers and stood. 

“Do you think she’s pretty?” 

John glowered. “Seriously, what the fuck. You’re worse than _Winston_.”

Marcus tried not to let it show but that actually did hurt his feelings a little. He liked to think he stood apart if only because he didn’t tie up his perversions with personal sentiment. It didn’t mean that Marcus wanted things or people any less, but that he was more practical about it. “You’ve been wasting his patronage for a decade. He is allowed to be a bit rough with you.” 

John fixed him with a fresh glare and Marcus had a vision of that glare in the future, sharp and perfect as glass. He turned to the girl and shook his head. 

“You can go. See? I told you he was a handful.” 

The girl smiled, “Good luck.” She squeezed Marcus’s shoulder before she went and Marcus forced himself to stare at her pert little ass and had no more visions. Thank fuck for that. 

“Sit on the floor. Be comfortable.” 

John did, folding himself carefully onto the floor. His head bent forward, almost the picture of submission. “What is this place?” 

“By all rights, it’s a karaoke bar,” Marcus sat back down on the couch. “It can become other things, too.” 

“Like a whorehouse,” John said. 

“Well.” The girl had left him one glass for the beer and Marcus poured himself exactly half a glass and then didn’t drink from it. “I brought you here to learn, John. To train. Do you need to be trained on how to fuck? Honeypotting is going out of fashion, but it doesn’t hurt to have that sort of thing in your back pocket.” 

“ _Jesus_ ,” John expelled a breath. “No.”

“Then this place isn’t a whorehouse. Not for you.” 

“Then why was she here?” 

“I was hoping to use her in an exercise,” Marcus said. “Fantasy integration. As far as I can tell, you run around with no structural integrity. This will help.” 

“Still sounds like a sex thing,” John said. 

“It’s not,” Marcus said. “Though I take your point. This room is about to get very uncomfortable. The temperature will get hot, it will get loud. It will stink. But I want you to concentrate and not lose focus.” 

“On what?” 

“That was what the girl was here for. I can get her to come back.” 

“Why would I want to fantasy integrate her?” 

“She’s easy on the eyes,” Marcus said. “To me, anyway. If your tastes run different, then I can have someone else sent in. Fantasy integration is where you put a subject in the forefront of your mind, hold them there. Up to seventy-two hours.”

“Three fucking days.” 

“I’ve done four,” Marcus said. “Once. Because I had to, John. That’s the thing you will learn from me. You do things because you have to. You can’t just put a bullet through everything you don’t like.” 

John finally looked at him. “How about you?” 

Marcus looked down at him too. “Me?” 

“I think you’re easy on the eyes,” John said, mouth twitching into something cruel and attractive and Marcus was very aware that he still had the volume of alchemical records on his person. Then he thought about disindividuation and came to himself again. 

“No.” 

“Are you scared?” Another plus about John that Marcus couldn’t quite appreciate fully at the moment. He smelled weakness even though if he didn’t know how to take full advantage of them yet. He knew boyish tricks, prodding, poking. It was, in a word: annoying as fuck. 

“It is inappropriate.” 

John laughed, and the awful part of that was Marcus enjoyed it. How the sound was imbued with a sort of suicidal confidence. “Don’t tiros and Protectorates often sleep together? I’ve heard it fosters trust.”

Marcus wondered where John heard that. _Trust_. No wonder his other Protectorates were dead. Marcus was beginning to think that his predecessors died, not because of John Wick and whatever the fuck made him secure the now unhappy patronage of the Manager of the New York Continental; they died, simply because they were stupid. 

“Sometimes,” Marcus didn’t like the way this conversation was going. It wasn’t as if he was a novice at this, the winnowing of words, the sharp jabs of intent. He’d become proficient enough at that, if only because Winston jabbed at him often enough and Marcus had to protect himself somehow. And he did sleep with his tiros sometimes. It was a way to pass time, another way to make them mind. 

But disindividuation or not, Marcus had no real desire to sleep with John and somehow, the inevitability of it, at least the way Harry made it sound, made him even more determined to prove a fucking point. 

“Did you sleep with your last one?” John fixed him with a narrow look. 

“Yes.” 

“And the one before that?” 

“Yes,” Marcus let out a breath. “You’re not going to win with me. But fine, if that’s what you want. Let’s have a go.” He reached for the remote. The noise, the smell. Marcus drew it all in and let the surroundings take.

 

John appeared in Marcus’s mind and wasted no time shooting him clean through in the head. _You’re easy on the eyes._ Bullshit.

But fine, this was easier to take anyway. 

The whole of the street bent, blurred, and Marcus fell only a few steps backwards before he got his bearings again and picked himself up. There was something a bit surreal about picking a bullet out of the side of one’s brain and feeling the gray matter sticky and like jelly marring his fingers. 

A foggy whiteness, like someone had splashed soured thick milk over his vision, covered his eyes. But Marcus, unlike John, remembered the teachings of those who had come before. He might not have an eye for history like Harry or Winston, but Marcus had the utmost respect for genealogy, the knowledge built into a person’s veins in memory. Teachings of someone long gone from his life. Cubs, ones who were worth their salt, grew up to slaughter their fathers and those who had even an inch of self-preservation upon their bodies abandoned their cubs long before. 

Marcus, for one, couldn’t remember if his former Protectorate was dead was simply on a beach in Chang Mai somewhere. 

“Winston tells me you’re a great shot,” said John from somewhere. “That’s the problem with sharpshooters. If you take their vision away, they can’t see shit. I got you, you fucker.” 

Marcus chose to believe Winston told John that out of kindness. Not that Winston had a kind bone in his body, but the man was certainly a keen student of objects in the shape of people. Namely, how such objects reacted when met with an unstoppable or immovable force. 

He heard an unnatural laughter tear out of his own throat. “So you can shoot to blind. That’s neat.” 

“I’ve had practice,” John said. “One of my Protectorates was obsessed.” 

“What happened to him?” 

“Her,” John said. “I shot her. She went blind and fell off a building.” 

Marcus found that he was armed. The semi-auto was loaded and fit comfortably in his hand, the way he knew and trusted that it would. 

He listened, waited, smelled, and shot. 

“My vision will come back,” said Marcus. “On account of where we are. But you know that. You came here despite knowing that.” 

His shot connected with something. Perhaps bone, because John swore, loudly and not in English. Which was heartening, somehow. It meant he had less to learn. 

“Do you want to know what Winston didn’t tell you?” 

“...What?” 

“I spent a year without my eyes, still with a gun in hand. Because I was told and that was what I was taught.” Marcus aimed again and hesitated. “Is this even any fun for you? If you get out from under a Protectorate, you could do all sorts of things, John. Certainly Winston told you that. Then you’d be beholden to nobody.” 

“Everyone’s beholden to someone,” John said. “It’s how the world works.” 

“No shit,” Marcus laughed. “The world ain’t roses, we do the best we can.” 

John didn’t answer, but Marcus knew he was still around. The upside of being where they were meant that Marcus didn’t have to think too hard. He just knew, as long as he trusted. 

“I never asked for this,” John said. He sounded closer now and Marcus shut his eyes tight, Willed the darkness to leave. He also sounded young enough to twist at Marcus’s insides and at this point and time, his insides had gone through hell and back, so that was something. 

“None of us did,” Marcus said. “I didn’t.” 

“But you like what you do.” 

Marcus’s eyesight was back now, bit by bit, and indeed John was not too far, limping and leaning against the side of a building. Marcus contemplated landing a shot, a cheap one somewhere to prove a damn point. But that would undo what thin slivers of education he’d tried hard to impart upon John’s body. 

“Wouldn’t go that far, kid. Really. Come on, get up.” Marcus offered John his hand and then an alarm went off in his head, something like _you dumbass, you shouldn’t have done that._

John had Marcus on his back, and Marcus prepared for death. He had to admit, Eventually, the kid would tire of killing something that wouldn’t die. Though who the fuck knew how long that was going to take. 

“Can you see me?” 

“Yeah,” Marcus said, drawing in a breath. “Can smell you too.” 

John pressed in, and then Marcus felt him. Rather, John’s cock, aroused and present and full of desirable blood and Marcus noted that his own breathing had gone a bit funny. Uneven, like he was no longer in control of himself. 

“I lied.” Marcus said vaguely, because he could think of nothing else to say that could get him out of this. But his body had a mind of his own, blood calling to blood. 

“About?” 

Marcus was mildly aware of John’s hand resting against the skin of his hip, possibly over his stigmata, where the blood gathering there was very much connected to somewhere down south. “Get off.” 

“Don’t want to,” John pressed in again and Marcus bit back a sound. He held disindivudation in his mind as clearly as he could, what it meant, how it wasn’t necessarily John’s smell, or his attractive dark energy that was making everything haywire. 

John said, “If I do this we can be honest. We can trust.” 

Marcus grabbed John by the chin and jerked him up to look him in the eye. John leered, pretty and hungry like a wolf in winter. 

“Get _off_ , this isn’t you. This is. It’s the thing inside, okay?” Marcus gripped him harder. “Do you remember this fucking thing?” 

“Sure, I remember this fucking thing.” 

Fuck this. Marcus brought his other hand up, and before he could change his mind, and before John could realize what he was after, (he probably didn’t, if only because he didn’t think Marcus had it in him), Marcus snapped John’s neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've stolen "fantasy integration" from Criminal Minds S9 Ep4. As far as I can tell, the show was also taking a lot of liberty. But the gist of it is that the exercise helps with a sniper's concentration and discipline - something that Marcus lives and dies by and something John desperately needs.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if anyone is still reading this, but I've sorted out my life and should be updating this work and others with some regularity now. Thanks for being here :).

Marcus woke up. He realized that he had a raging boner and the room was too hot. Great. 

He grappled for the remote, still plagued by the recent memory of blindness and managed to turn off the foul smell coming through the vents and the sticky cackling from the speakers. 

Also not too far away from his fingers, was the memory of snapping John Wick’s neck in two. 

“Enjoy that?” 

Marcus looked down at his hands. “I’ve never done that before.” It occurred to him only as he answered that he wasn’t sure, why it’d taken him so long to do a thing that probably was quite formative for others like him. He’d never liked getting his hands dirty, that was all. 

He followed the sound of John’s voice to find him still on the floor. Head still bowed and then Marcus made a face and looked away again once he realized exactly what John was doing. “Stop touching yourself.” 

“Why?” 

Marcus kept his eyes trained on the ceiling. “What are you, thirteen? Puberty got you good or something?” 

Maybe that was what the beer was there for. The girl had good instincts and knew Marcus would need some for later even if she wasn’t personally involved in whatever the fuck this was. He chugged the glass he’d poured from earlier, noting that it had grown lukewarm, but the second glass he filled up from the jug was blessedly cool going down his throat. 

“Or maybe I just felt like it,” John said. 

Marcus’s temples prickled with good sense. He said, “Come here.” 

John hesitated, and then crawled to him. Marcus noted that the kid’s fly was still open. He imagined himself curling his hand around John’s dick and getting the kid to mind, inch by inch. He imagined John sharpened and ready in his hands like a weapon. 

Taking that extra five seconds to think about the consequences of his actions has never led Marcus wrong. Except now, when John surged, like a wave, like a beast, threatening to devour the whole of Marcus’s being. He found himself pinned supine on the couch, with John straddled over him holding him in place. 

“Can I have some beer?” 

“It’s not very good.” Marcus said, telling the truth. “But sure, whatever.” 

“You drink it.” 

“I try not to be picky,” Marcus deadpanned. Showing remarkable flexibility, John turned his torso and made to fill Marcus’s glass with beer. He chugged it with boyish abandon and usually Marcus didn’t enjoy that sort of thing. Youthfulness reminded him, more than anything else, that there was work to be done. 

John put down the glass and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He put his hands, palms flat on Marcus’s chest and Marcus willed his breathing to still. “When was the last time you got laid, anyway?” 

“You don’t get to ask me that,” Marcus said. 

“Why?” John pressed. “And don’t give me the because you’re my Protectorate bullshit. We both know that’s a load of fucking crap.” 

And that’s Marcus, out of ideas. He said, “I get laid plenty, thanks. Tiros don’t cramp my style that much. And you? Do you know how to do anything besides shoot off your mouth?” 

John poured himself more beer. “The last time I proposed such a thing you _snapped my neck_.” 

“Yeah, and you asked me if I enjoyed it.” 

Marcus thought he felt it again, John’s erection twitching against him with hot, ready blood. He pressed a hand against John’s hard, flat belly and felt him tense in anticipation beneath his touch. 

“Did you? You never answered me.” 

Thankfully, at that very moment, A noisy vibration went off in his back pocket where Marcus kept his phone and that mostly broke the tension. But John still didn’t move. 

“Get the fuck off me.” 

John did, not too happily but for once he did as he was told. He poured himself more beer, and Marcus kept an eye on the kid as he took the call. “Yeah.” 

“Catch you in the middle of something?” Harry said casually. 

“No.” 

There was a judging silence on the other end. As if Harry was imagining what Marcus was up to, probably to take the piss out of him later, and not get off on it. Finally, Harry said, “Still looking for an alchemist?” 

That got Marcus’s attention right quick. “You found one?” 

“Don’t say I don’t look out for you.” Where Harry was, it sounded dead quiet. “Meet me at the Bowery. Bring the kid.” 

“I’m banned,” Marcus said. He found that he couldn’t really remember. It used to be more important to him that he remembered stuff like this, but recent events had rendered his normal life the least of his worries. “I think.” 

“Consider the ban lifted.” Now Harry sounded smug; he never sounded smug. “For science. But you should remember that His Royal Highness still doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” 

 

“Where are you banned from?” John asked. Marcus studied the kid out of the corner of his eye and found that he’d never seen him so rapt with attention. He resisted the urge to punch John in the face but figured the gesture would be a deterrent to all the unexpected progress he was apparently making. 

“What do you know about the Bowery?” 

“I’ve been to a Chinese place that was pretty good in the Bowery. One of my other Protectorates was obsessed with their noodles.” 

“A guy’s gotta eat,” Marcus agreed. 

John said, “Yeah.” 

“What do you know about what’s underneath?” 

John’s eyes slid to the ground. “You mean, like the subway?”

“I mean better.” Marcus exhaled deeply and squared his shoulders once more. It was about time he got to show off.

 

Or not. 

A debilitating pain struck Marcus once more near his kidney, probably right over his stigmata. The good thing was that he was growing used to hurting there, so it was easier to stay conscious, even if he did double over right on cue. “Fuck!” 

Nearby, there was a familiar sound of bone cracking, followed by a loud yowl that seemed more beastlike than human. Weirdly, Marcus was relieved to know that it wasn’t John’s voice. Once he had gathered enough of himself, he swatted off the grip that somebody had on him and cleared his pistol from its holster. 

Someone said, “Hey –” 

Marcus aimed and fired. The bullet flew past John’s ear with pinpoint precision, exactly as he’d meant it to. The stray shot had the intended effect: John’s grip abandoned some poor fucker’s throat to safeguard his eardrums. John scowled, “What the _fuck_?” 

“As your Protectorate, I order you to stop fucking around. You’re gonna get us banned. Again. I’ve had it up to here. Don’t think I don’t mean it.” The motion wasn’t anywhere near as smooth or as certain as he would have liked it to be, but Marcus grabbed a fistful of John’s hair and yanked him up. He jammed the muzzle of his gun firmly against the hollow of John’s throat, pressing hard enough to leave a mark. At least, Marcus hoped so. 

Somebody said, “Jesus Christ. What the fuck is he doing?” 

“You know that doesn’t work,” John said, his glare bright and angry. That same sort of anger spoke to Marcus in his veins and made his blood sing. 

Marcus snarled, “No, but it’ll still take you about ten minutes to bleed out if I pull the trigger. Do you think that’s a walk in the park, hm?” 

“You two sure know how to make an entrance,” said Harry, from somewhere. “You should probably let go of him now. Marcus, Marcus hey.” 

His trigger finger, normally the paragon of patience and self-control, itched as if it was on fire and so far from anything his brain could tell it to do. For the first time in the longest time, the piece of metal in Marcus’s grip felt like a foreign object. 

“Do it,” John’s lips spread into a leery red smile. 

“ _Marcus_ ,” Harry said his name, and Marcus registered suddenly, iron fingers digging into his elbow. “Let go of the gun. Now.” 

The gun clattered to the ground, and echoed, as if a bullet had left its chamber. From the echo, a slow series of claps melded into the room. “A show like that! I don’t even mind waiting. Told you, Marcus, you should have come work for me.” 

Marcus sank to his knees and gripped his hands together. From this vantage point, the Bowery King looked especially imposing. “Couldn’t have even if I wanted to. No one refuses the High Table.” 

The Bowery King said, “I did.” 

“And you’re stuck in a fucking sewer where everything smells like shit.” Marcus countered, but his retort was weak, and everyone knew it. 

“And you’re,” the Bowery King trailed off, “looking like a real peach.”

“Come on,” Harry hauled him up by his armpits and out of the corner of his eye, Marcus saw two goons, one on each side, drag John to his feet. And then they pinned John’s arms behind him and Marcus felt a rush of heat near his kidney. 

“Don’t struggle. All right? Just don’t. It’s better this way. ” 

John made a disagreeable noise in his throat, but otherwise did nothing. As they walked deeper into the tunnels, the pang in Marcus’s kidney slowly disappeared. 

 

Finally, they came to a room, some sort of meeting space, it looked like, with mismatched chairs and a dingy lamp providing light. It’d been some years since he’d come down here, but the smell was more or less the same. 

“Don’t make me laugh,” Marcus said, as he peered at the Bowery King anew. “ _You’re_ the alchemist.” 

“No.” The Bowery King shook his head, but he still sounded too pleased with himself. “But you know who he is.” 

“And he’s agreed to help us?”

The Bowery King did not meet his gaze. “Help is a very strong word, Marcus. Say, maybe we start small, with the idea that our mutual friend simply wants to satiate his own curiosity.” 

Marcus narrowed his eyes and then turned his attention to Harry, who was still standing beside his chair. “You’re not fucking with me, are you?” 

Harry said, “You’re doing that fine on your own.” 

Marcus looked down his hands and curled his trigger finger towards the center of his palm. He didn’t even get the feeling that Harry was being sarcastic. It was a sad state of affairs when irony was naked enough to stand in for the truth. “Can I talk to you? Outside.” 

“Sure.” 

John said, “Marcus. Don’t _leave_ me.” 

Something that wasn’t vomit rushed up Marcus’s throat and he had some difficulty swallowing it. “I’ll be right outside. Just outside.” 

“I don’t want you to leave.” Where Marcus had shoved his gun against the hollow of John’s neck, a red bruise had formed there, and the mark seemed seemed to come alive, staring at him accusingly in the face. “I don’t know him.” John jerked his chin in the direction of the Bowery King, who immediately looked offended. 

Marcus said, quickly, “I haven’t got that far, can you blame me? Look, introduce yourselves. Be friends. Harry, _outside_.” 

 

“Introduce yourselves, be friends,” Harry said. “I’d say you have a deathwish, but.” 

“Save me from your sterling wit,” Marcus said. He doubled over and spit onto the ground, hawking loudly. “Fuck.” 

“Easy,” Harry said. 

Marcus stared at the mudlike bile that had left his mouth this time. “Harry, I’m _pissed off_.” 

“I see that.” 

“You don’t,” Marcus shook his head. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and ran his tongue across the back of his teeth. He tasted nothing, but couldn’t figure out if that was a good thing or bad. “I’m. I don’t.” 

Harry waited for a moment longer and shoved his hands into his pockets. “John Wick is a very angry young man, Marcus. You used to be angry; it’s not unusual for the stigmata to cling to these shared emotions to bring you two closer together." 

"Right." 

Harry added, "And John Wick doesn’t want to be left alone. He’s probably spent his entire life wanting to be alone.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Marcus closed his eyes. 

Harry, ever the veteran at choosing his battles, shrugged and let it go. “Okay, suit yourself. Here’s the alchemist.” 

Marcus looked and not for the first time, wanted to die again. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”


End file.
